Buyer wants a refund......What shall I do?

smartie1976

lazymoezy wrote:

I dont think it was damaged in transit. The thing is it is so obvious he is trying it on....

The key word there is THINK, because you don't know and you have NO PROOF.

Hey MOE, remember when your 'neighbour' got in your room and stole 8 phones from you. And you got CID involved and everything and that story seemed hard for us to believe?

Well time for you to believe your buyer.

If it gets to a chargeback he can (and most likely will) leave less than impressive comments in your feedback that could totally screw your immediate rep as a mobile seller.

For goodness sake refund the bloke and end this saga!

Nokias are notoriously unreliable with the on/off button.

lazymoezy

That neighbour situation has nothing to do with it, if oyu dont beleive what happened thats up to you, it is a free world.

Back to the phone....I took it to the shop and the guy there called someone up to find out what the problem was as he couldnt figure it out. This person who turned out to be the owner of the shop said the phone had been tampered with, he said someone tried to unlock it and there is a software problem which would cost £70 or £75 to fix, forgot the amount already!

I just walked out saying no thank you. Obviously the buyer tried unlocking this phone, it is impossible to unlock and he still tried unlocking it.

The 'THINK' now turns into a 'I KNOW' the phone didnt get damaged in transit.

I dont want to refund him I would rather give him the phone back as he caused the damage.

Should I send it back via special delivery? Or wait for him to contact me because I sent him a message a few days ago and still no reply.

seabiscuit_2

For Paypal / ebay not to refund, you will have to prove without any doubt that they (and not you nor the previous owner) tampered with the phone (which will be difficult as you stated on your auction the phone was tested before selling) and will need written evidence from an independent sourceconfirming all this.

All that said, paypal /ebay will still say as he returned the phone to you in good faith and refund him, you will then get a non-performing seller tick on your account and the chances are high you will get a big fat neg which will affect your business

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/seller-non-performance.html

lazymoezy

At the moment I have contacted both eBay and paypal and they have said I should either refund or send the phone back. I think I will send the phone back without waiting for him to reply because he seems to take forever to reply.

What do you think I should do?

Btw thanks for the advice, I am taking it on board and without MSE I dont know what I would have done, not only in this situation but other eBay & money related situations.

-MoE-

apprentice_tycoon

Moe, you seem to have had one problem after another with selling phones, all of them brought to us all on here for advice.

If I was you I'd give up trying to sell phones and look for something else to build your ebay empire with, it's not worth the worry wondering when the next phone sale is going to go wrong (by that I mean our worry, you seem impervious:rotfl: :rotfl: )

lazymoezy

I've had like a maximum of 3 issues regarding phones on eBay out of 41, Most of the time I ask for help before there is a major problem like this.

This is the first time I got a phone back from a buyer, I have only received positive feedback from all my phone buyers on ebay. This is the first big problem. The only other problem was when my phones got stolen but I did get them back, that had nothing to do with the buyer son eBay as the phones wernt sold to them at the time of the incident, the auction was still running.

I dont do that much selling on eBay compared to a few months ago, I sell to friends who sell them on or on Gumtree. That way I meet the buyers face to face and if they have a problem they can come back to my address as I do most of the dealings from home, this gives buyers extra security & I dont minbd it as a seller.

soolin

Just a thought, if the buyer believes you are trying to scam him all he has to do is to refuse to sign for the return package, then it will be returned to you, there is no way at all you can force him to re accept this phone now.

If I was dealing with an unco-operative seller I would certainly not sign for any packages for a while.

One other thing that struck me, you are convinced this phone was good, yet you turned it on to test it before selling it, which could be read as you being worried that the phone might have been sold to you in a less than perfect state. If I sell something new I would have no reason to test it first, unless I had suspicions about it.

Soo

seabiscuit_2

I have to say 3 problems in 41 sales is pretty poor, you are basically saying for every 100 sales you will get about 6 problems, to get to decent feedback (for mobile phone sales - we are talking thousands) then you are talking 60 such problems

in over a thousand positive feedback ive had less than five difficult buyers - do you not see the difference?

If I was your buyer, I too would refuse every signed for package. you opened the packaging before selling the phone, this makes the item not new, and makes it extremely difficult to prove that you did not damage it. there is every chance to expect your buyer to start an ebay claim, and if that does not work and to be honest, id be surprised if it failed, then they can take you to a small claims court, and include all fees. you then have to prove they damaged the phone - can you do this 100%?

refund them, get the phone repaired, and take the lesson learnt

lazymoezy

soolin wrote:

Just a thought, if the buyer believes you are trying to scam him all he has to do is to refuse to sign for the return package, then it will be returned to you, there is no way at all you can force him to re accept this phone now.

If I was dealing with an unco-operative seller I would certainly not sign for any packages for a while.

One other thing that struck me, you are convinced this phone was good, yet you turned it on to test it before selling it, which could be read as you being worried that the phone might have been sold to you in a less than perfect state. If I sell something new I would have no reason to test it first, unless I had suspicions about it.

Soo

Most buyers state they opened to test. I received the phone sealed, I broke the seal to check all contents and tried out my contract 3 sim, to make sure both payg sims and contract worked, I also turned it on to check out the features, this was clearly stated in my auction.

Well, Ill just wait and see what the buyer has to say....I get your point and I appreciate the advice you have given me but most of the people on this thread seem to imply I am at fault here. Maybe I am at fault for not refunding him AND holding onto the phone (only doing this because buyer hasnt replied and am trying to resolve first rather than a dispute), I am not at fault for giving a faulty phone.....thats what most of you on here seem to label me as.

Btw....I did say 3 problem, one was this the other was that my phones got stolen not really a problem....the rest were minor i.e information on changing title, editing listing time etc etc.

I have not yet received anything other than + feedback, I know its only 41 but I've seen hundreds of sellers selling to people with less than 41 feedback.

-MoE-

seabiscuit_2

Okie look at things this way - its the difference between good customer service and bad

the guy possibly did break the phone

BUT
would you as a buyer spend £150 quid plus with a seller who has good feedback stating that in the event of a problem they refund amicably therefore giving you the buyer confidence to buy, or one that has negs for refusing to refund for a damaged phone

marks and spencers know that their refund policy looses money but in terms of good customer service relations, people buy in confidence knowing if there is a problem then their money is still safe

none of us dispute that the buyer may well have damaged the phone, and we have all had buyers that we know are likely to be lying about things, but a good business has money put aside to cover expenses like this to maintain their good customer service record